Applying a "We're-Just-Not-Buying-It" Standard in False Claims Act Retaliation Cases: Jones-McNamara v. Holzer Health Systems

Dear Readers:

False Claims Act ("FCA") retaliation cases are increasingly common. And, a plaintiff does not have to allege very much to bring a FCA retaliation claim and defeat a motion to dismiss: Rule 9(b)'s requirement that the plaintiff plead fraud with particularity does not apply to retaliation cases, so the bar for a plaintiff to successfully state a FCA retaliation claim is often quite low. The FCA's anti-retaliation provision, 33 USC 3730(h), protects former employees who were discharged "because of lawful acts done . . . in furtherance of an action under [33 USC 3729] or efforts to stop 1 or more violations under this subchapter." Essentially, it protects "all efforts [by an employee] to stop" an FCA violation, including where the employee was simply collecting information about a possible fraud. Jones-McNamara v. Holzer Health Systems, 2015 WL 6685302 *4 (6th Cir. Nov. 2, 2015).

Yet, even with a permissive standard for bringing retaliation claims, the 6th Circuit recently instructed that there is a limit to the deference afforded plaintiffs in retaliation cases. As the Court found in Jones-McNamara, to show that an employer retaliated against an employee, the plaintiff must first "show that allegations of fraud [committed by their employer] grew out of a reasonable belief in such fraud." Translation: the Court isn't just going to allow a plaintiff to cast anything done by the employer as a potential fraud; a plaintiff's belief that his or her employer committed a fraud in violation of the FCA must be objectively reasonable.

In Jones-McNamara, a hospital compliance officer alleged that the hospital violated the Anti-Kickback statute ("AKS") and FCA because a patient transport company with whom the hospital had been dealing had given one of the hospital's emergency room physicians a "jacket valued at $23.50" and had provided "free hotdogs and hamburgers" at the hospital's "employee health and wellness fair" that was held in 2008 and 2009. Applying what appears to be a "we're just not buying it" standard, the 6th Circuit in a 2-1 decision found:  "It cannot plausibly be suggested that one jacket valued at $23.50 and occasional servings of hotdogs and hamburgers could induce a reasonable person to prefer one provider over another. In fact, these items represent such a low monetary value they can only be characterized as 'token' gestures of good will under OIG guidance." Contrasting the plaintiff's complaint with the litany of serious and exorbitant entertainment featured in HHS-OIG reports and reported cases, the Court observed: "[i]t is ludicrous to believe that a person would be tempted to make illegal referrals in exchange for a couple hotdogs once a year."

The Court challenged the plaintiff's attempt to cast these de minimis gifts as giving rise to anti-kickback violations because the plaintiff had not shown any connection between the "gifts" and any alleged referrals by the hospital to the patient transport company. Moreover, the Court complained that the plaintiff had not shown that the employees who ate the hotdogs or the physician who received a jacket were even in a position to make referrals on behalf of the hospital to the patient transport company. While the plaintiff claimed that the physician who received the jacket was in a position to make referrals, the Court observed that the plaintiff provided no evidence that was in fact true --the plaintiff just wanted it to be that way. As the Court observed further, the plaintiff reported that the hospital violated the AKS based on her "unquestioned, unconfirmed, and thus unreasonable assumption that [the doctors] not only had the authority but in fact routinely made the decision to refer business to [the transport company] in knowing and willful return for illegal kickbacks" --an allegation that had no factual basis.

Jones-McNamara is a helpful decision for defending FCA retaliation cases. First, the Court essentially says that isolated de minimis gifts simply will not give rise to an anti-kickback violation and that complaints about such gifts by an employee as being "fraudulent" certainly do not qualify as reasonable evidence that the employer is engaged in fraudulent conduct. Second, and as importantly, the Court further suggests that district courts should closely scrutinize the assumptions made by plaintiffs who allege that their employer committed fraud and determine whether such accusations are reasonable or plausible. Here, the Court simply did not find it reasonable or plausible that eating hotdogs or accepting a single jacket provided by a vendor would lead hospital employees to engage in serious violations of the law. 

A. Brian Albritton

November 19, 2015